Of All Things
by CosmicImbalance
Summary: Gotham approaches its quadricentennial. Lois Lane writes an editorial.


A/N: Grant Morrison that Gotham couldn't possibly be that awful because no one would ever want to live there. Respectfully, I disagree. Drawn from the Morrison mythology, refers obliquely to silverpard's a mirror, darkly. Batman does not belong to me.

400 Years of Gotham: A Conversation on the Quadricentennial

Editorial by Lois Lane

New York City is the cultural heart of the world, where business and entertainment and 6 million people from a thousand cultures blend and merge. Metropolis is the heart of the world's future, the location of some of the most cutting-edge scientific, medical, and tech firms and research facilities in the world. Gotham, though. Gotham is something else. A heart of some kind, certainly, but not quite like the others. A heart of darkness, some might say. This reporter sees a heart in the truest sense of the word—an organ, a raw and bloody thing. Weak and vulnerable, yes, yet also incredibly powerful. A thing fundamentally, intrinsically _alive._ That's why people stay there, you see.

There must be something in the water over there, is what non-Gothamites think. Something beyond the silt and trash and chemical pollution, something that begets the madness that makes people want to stay in the most dangerous city in America. If you tell a Gothamite this suspicion, they probably won't disagree. In fact, they'll tell you about the demon bound under Old Gotham. The evil magic carved into the walls of Arkham Asylum by its insane creator. A witch's ancient curse on the city's founders. There are a hundred legends, myths, and riddles that they'll tell you, the explanations that they learned for the darkness that has always plagued their city. And they'll agree its mad to stay. But being mad is alright with them. They are Jack Kerouac's people. Mad to live, desirous of everything. Oh, how brightly they burn in that dark city.

Gotham's brightest son is Bruce Wayne, Chairman of Wayne Enterprises, heir to an ancient fortune, philanthropist, and playboy extraordinaire. They say only one other man in Gotham smiles as widely as Bruce Wayne. The other man spends most of his time locked up in Arkham. The other man is the Joker. When you speak to Bruce Wayne, you do get the impression that you're speaking to a madman of some sort. He is a man never wholly there in the moment, you'll think when you see him smile. He's listening to you, but he's anticipating the next thing. The next glass of champagne. The next beautiful woman. The next adrenaline fix. And then he'll give you a serious look and you'll realized he's been there all along in the present moment, you've just been struggling to catch up. Maybe he is a fool, an idiot, a lunatic—all sound and fury due to his wealth, but no one of true significance. But his eyes belong to someone else. Something else. Something old, something ancient and haunted. You are reminded that he was only nine when his parents died. That his life between then and age twenty-three—when he returned to Gotham and the public eye—remains mostly a mystery.

Tell me about the history of Gotham, asks this reporter.

"It begins with me, it ends with me," says Bruce Wayne, quoting the traditional beginning of one of the old stories. This reporter cuts him off right there.

What does the history of Gotham mean to you, someone whose family has been a part of that history since the very beginning?

"It astounds me that my family stayed all this time, after everything," he says, finally, after a long moment of contemplation.

You stayed, this reporter reminds him. In fact, Bruce Wayne left and then came back.

"How could I leave?" he asks, smiling, wide and mad, shrugging helplessly. He's right, of course. Perhaps, once, the Waynes could have left Gotham. But that was long ago, before their bones became foundations and their blood watered the city streets. Gotham has always killed the Waynes, but it has given them life, too. It has given them a fortune and a place that is their own. It is a trap from which even one of the richest men in the world could not escape. Maybe that's why he turned to women and wine and extreme sports—escapism.

Escape. Run away to Gotham, the city of all of your dreams and nightmares. It will keep you there even when you know better—it is a prison, an asylum you build for yourself. And because it is yours you will love it and you will never want to leave. The story is an old one, a spell nearly, about the Miagani peoples, about witches, about a small band of Puritan fools, and the Bat. It begins with you, it ends with you. Between one heartbeat and the next, you create Gotham. You feed it your blood, your soul, your life. When you die, it dies with you. When it dies so too will you. Come to Gotham and be reborn. Go among the mad people. Look up at the dizzying neo-Gothic spires. Realize how small you are, in the face of something so much older you, so much bigger, so much darker. Try not to look into the shadows, because there will always be something looking back. Blink and hear the heartbeat of Gotham thrum in your ears, a sound like old bells tolling. Breathe the air and taste the blood and ink and grime of 400 years of being. Will you stay?

This reporter won't. She'll return to Metropolis. To the heart of the future, a younger and lighter place. But you might stay in that strange, crooked place. You might be wise to do so—to cleave close to a place where anything and everything great or terrible can happen, has happened. You might also be insane. Its residents will welcome you either way, with tight smiles and friendship and knives at your throat. Welcome to Gotham, the heart of all things.


End file.
